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Kurapika found himself alone with Chrollo. He was still clad in the fake receptionist uniform from earlier and his chains still held Chrollo like a harness, their length growing only to allow Kurapika to distance himself. He paced around the room, suppressing the urge to break something.
“Not being able to kill me must feel awful,” Chrollo said, bored. Kurapika shot him a look, but did not answer.
He was waiting for Leorio and Melody to return so he could have something else to focus on. Gon and Killua were his top priority right now, they had to be, but it was hard to keep himself still. To keep his feet from moving and his hands from shaking and himself from killing Chrollo and finally leaving the spider headless.
“Hope you don’t mind if I sit,” Chrollo said, not really caring for an answer.
Kurapika’s heart was hammering in his chest. He turned around and dragged himself a chair to sit across from Chrollo. He’d thought of what to say countless times. For years, he’d laid awake just imagining being able to have whoever had massacred his village. There were no faces or names for him to picture back then. He’d shouted words at vaguely shaped, cruel figures, but the answers he’d come up with himself could never be satisfying.
And now Chrollo was right in front of him, real and alive and at his mercy. And he couldn’t kill him. He inhaled a few controlled breaths, trying to steady himself.
“Do you not feel anything?” Kurapika said through gritted teeth. His voice had been quiet but his eyes bore into Chrollo, the red shining through the edges of his contact lenses.
Chrollo almost rolled his eyes at him, “Is that your big question?” he scoffed. “Do you want me to shed tears and apologize to you?”
Kurapika stilled. “You didn’t answer.”
Chrollo sighed. “What does it matter?” he said with the hint of a smile, “if you want to kill me so badly, just do it. I’m not going to give you closure for your tragic life or whatever.”
Kurapika’s blood was boiling in his veins as he stood, throwing his hand up, the chains extending again and wrapping around both Chrollo and the chair he was seated on.
“Just because I can’t kill you. Right now,” he spoke, “Doesn’t mean I won’t do it eventually.”
Chrollo burst into laughter, the sound abruptly cut with a kick Kurapika delivered to his face. It knocked him straight to the floor, the chains digging painfully through his side as his mouth filled with the taste of blood.
“You’re all going to die,” he whispered.
Kurapika had always feared that his anger would fade. That he would fall into apathy, standing back and passively accepting what had happened. Accepting that the ones responsible for the deaths of those he’d held dear would be able to continue living, never being brought to justice. But that scorching fire inside him had never died, and instead been lit anew. First when he’d finally seen the spiders. Then when he killed Uvogin. And now, this.
Chrollo made no move to try and lift himself or struggle. And then, as if to spite Kurapika, he laughed again.
Kurapika kicked him onto his back, stepping above him. “I don’t care. For fucking excuses.” He puts his foot on Chrollo’s chest and pulls the chains tighter.
He wanted to leave bruises beneath those clothes. To mark Chrollo with a promise. “I wanted to think,” he said, “that there might be something. In any of you. Something to make me understand your senseless violence.”
Chrollo stared impassively at him.
“You wanted to understand us?” he asked, mockery clear on his face. “It’s quite simple, really.”
“What the FUCK is simple about it?” Kurapika nearly shouted and shoved the heel of his shoe harder into Chrollo’s ribs. “What is simple about slaughtering a hundred and twenty eight people?”
Chrollo coughed for a bit, then turned his head to the side, spitting out blood.
“Everything,” he said. “You only didn’t think of it because you’re stupid and self-absorbed,” he continued, unbothered. “The Kurta eyes were prized items. We just happened to take them.”
Kurapika’s vision went white. He kicked viciously until Chrollo’s his ribs broke and he heard him choking on blood.
“You had no right,” he said, his body shaking and his breathing ragged. “You had no right to take anything from them. You had no right to steal their lives.”
Chrollo almost pondered on that.
“We don’t care for anyone’s permission,” he said coldly, “Whatever we can take was already ours.”
Kurapika felt as if his anger would char him right there. How much further could it go? There had been nothing for him to understand. The act had been as empty and insignificant as any other for Chrollo. Kurapika lowered himself until he was on top the other man, a hand on each side of him, his knee pushing into Chrollo’s broken ribs.
“Then,” he breathed, “Then. Whatever I take from you, is mine.”
His fingers dragged themselves over Chrollo’s face, and for the first time he appeared worried. Kurapika didn’t hesitate when he dug his fingers in. Chrollo gritted his teeth, his other eye widening. Kurapika pulled sharply and Chrollo let out an honest cry of pain as he writhed, only for a moment, finally feeling thrown off balance.
Then he stilled, breathing painfully, and the one eyed glare he gave Kurapika could nearly match the one that was returned to him.
“I can hear them coming,” Kurapika said, standing, “That is the only reason I’m stopping.”
Then he sat there, transfixed on the blood on his hand and the eye he held in his palm with mix of disgust and frustration.
Chrollo could see his blood splattered on Kurapika’s stockings and skirt, the white collar of his shirt and jacket. He let him stare at the eye he’d taken from him until Melody walked in, followed by Leorio.
Kurapika didn’t look at them.